How To Face Competition In Any Business

Starting a business is usually very exciting. You got the business idea, the business plan, the start-up capital, the personnel and the business site, perfect. Then you kick off and everything seems to be moving smoothly. Money streams into your pocket and you are like, "Wow! I am making it!” 

Everyone is calling to say Congratulations! Friends, family, acquaintances are all patronizing your business and you see yourself gradually getting on top of the business world. One month, two, three, four, one year and then comes the ugly enemy.

In the beginning, he seems not to be serious, and then you see him showing up with more seriousness after a few months. Before it is another year, the enemy stands right before your face and you cannot help but notice. You start battling with staying in the business or giving up to the enemy. I know you know who I am referring to. You don’t need to be in business too long and you will become familiar with his name. His is called Mr. COMPETITION. 
 

Did you know that while competition has caused many people to pack their bags, shut their doors and go home, it has made many others to rise up from grass to grace? Did you know that while some people are destroyed and defeated in business when stiff competition shows up, it is the right ground for some others to thrive and take over the market? Some business people get excited when they are faced with fierce competition because it makes them to think and do even better. What is your story? 

I have watched many people crumble at the face of fierce competition as it meets them unprepared. I am sure if you look well enough around you, you will notice businesses that were thriving just a few years back but are only managing to survive today. 

I tell you, competition is no friend to anyone. It favors the prepared and disfavors the unprepared and weak. This is why I have put together this series “How To Face Competition in Any Business”, to prepare you for the competition that lies ahead as you start up with your business. 

On this website, you would have found so many business ideas that you can set up and be made. Once you set up a business and people begin to see it flourishing, many will come around to understand how you do your business and in no time, many of such businesses will spring up. 

This is what you cannot prevent. However, you can decide to stay as the king, and make sure that others continue to follow you as you lead. If you have a good know how of the business you are doing, the market and the stakeholders, and can strategize well, you will always be on top.  In this first piece, I focus on the true owners of any business, those I call the stakeholders. Who are they?

DISCOVERING THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSONS IN THE LIFE OF YOUR BUSINESS

This piece introduces you to the most important people of your business-the stakeholders. You need to know that every business has stake holders. These stake holders are the people who affect the business in one way or the other. In order to face stiff competition, you need to know who these stake holders are, and the amount of influence each one has on your business. 

I present to you the following five persons that are key to the growth of your business, especially in the face of competition:

1.    Your Competitors’ Customers

I have gone to many places and seen it written: “THE CUSTOMER IS KING”. Well, I hope that is just a strategy to impress the customer, even though in most cases, there is a wide gap between the theory and the practice. When I talk to any business owner, I tell him/her, the customer of your business is not the king. Rather, the customers of your competitor are the true kings.

These are the people you need to spend sleepless nights, thinking about. You need to keep thinking about how to win them by finding out what they need and strategizing to win them over to you. They are more important than the customers you already have. I guess this is what Jesus was saying when he talked about a man who had 100 sheep, lost one and left the rest of the 99 to go in search of the lost one.

 Now, do you realize something? It means you may have been focusing all your energies on the wrong people. No doubt that your customers are very important people in your business. You need to understand them and keep them happy, to stay in business. However, your competitors’ customers are more important. They are the reason why your competitor is still able to compete with you.

So: You will never win against competition if you don’t understand your competitor’s customers, what they have, what they want, why they go to your competitor and not come to you, what they think about you and what will win their money. Think about these.

2.    Your  Customers

Your customers are the heart of your business as long as it exists. They are the ones who keep you in the business and without them you would have been knocked off long ago. As long as they are still there, it means they can bear your weaknesses and failures. Some of them have been there with you right from the beginning and you can be more certain that they will always be there. 

Some customers are 100% loyal and will stay with you even when tides are low. In fact, some will be the reason for you to always think of how to continue in the business race no matter the odds. These are the men and women behind all you are doing.

It disturbs me when I see how people take customer relationship with levity but want to stay in business. You see the way they treat their customers and you wonder if they understand why they are in business. 

There are some customers whose loyalty to any business is hard to get. At the slightest disappointment, they are gone. Hey!, what does losing one customer mean to you? 

Have you taken time to study the growth rate of your customer base and see if you are losing or gaining customers? Do you have a means of finding out what your customers think about your business? Do you bother to call and find out from your customers how they are faring? Are you concerned enough about your customers’ problems when they complain to you? 

So: Your customers are powerful stake holders in your business and cannot be replaced like you replace workers.

3.    Your Co-workers

Did I say co-workers? Yes I did. And by co-workers I mean the people who work with you (not for you). You see, most often the way people build their businesses is dangerous. It is surrounded around them and every other person doesn’t get the sense of ownership that would make him/her own the business and give his/her best. It is about the founder and no other person. 

This is a wrong way of building a business and such a business will not easily survive fierce competition because those who work for you will never be affected by the going down of your business, like those who work with you.

Take time to position your business in the minds of your co-workers. Let them understand how the business’ progress will affect them. Let them see where you are going and decide to go with you no matter the odds. Don’t be too busy to be concerned about their wellbeing. Don’t let them feel that you are only interested in using them to make your money. 

I know organizations where workers’ salaries are nothing to ride home about but they remain so passionate about the work. I also know organizations where at the end of the month, workers smile to the banks for healthy packages, but don’t feel belonging to the organization. 

I once taught in a school where we were always reminded that there are many persons out there looking for job opportunities and so if we were not willing to stay, we could as well leave. And so the staff turnover for that school was so high with workers leaving at every slightest opportunity. What importance do you attach to the people making the money.

So: Never place your business above your workers. Don’t make them feel you can always get someone else to fill their position if they decide to leave. Get involved in their lives, trust them and make them know that you are in the business together with them and you will all share the outcome. Bother about the things that they bother about. Be concerned and they will want to die for your business to succeed no matter what.

4.    Your Competitors

Amongst all the stakeholders of your business, these are the most unfriendly and difficult to grapple with. Haha! Why shouldn’t they be, when they need something you are also looking for? As much as you are after their customers, they are after yours. You both are in a race and there is no smiling about this; at least not when the race is still on.

I don’t care how related your competitor is to you, they will never wish that you outwit them in the business and so will be foolish to tell you their secrets. You must be intelligent enough to discover their secrets yourself. But if you are so intelligent you will not need to discover their secrets because they will rather be struggling to know yours in order to meet up with you.

Your competitors are the people who give you sleepless nights the most. You want to understand the next thing on their mind, who their partners are, the secrets of their success, theirs strengths and weaknesses and so on. You need to know these so that you can do a good SWOT analysis of your business and put up the best competitive strategy against them. 

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are not written in any book, neither can you see them on your competitor’s fore head. You need to be wise enough to find out. It is the information that will make you always stay ahead.

So: Observe how your competitors do their business. Find out their areas of greatest strengths and areas of weaknesses; the difference in their strategies, their values, their products, their services and why their customers prefer them, and so on. These will help you in strategizing. 

5.    Yourself

You are the most important stakeholder in your business and much of your business’ existence depends on you. Your customers and co-workers will one day leave you, some of your competitor’s customers may never become yours and your competitor may continue to mount fierce competition against you, but you are the only one who will have to decide to keep fighting or to quit.

You can choose to go to sleep and quit in the face of competition or you fold your sleeves and put on a brave eye on things, to face the competition.
You need to keep working on better (more efficient and effective) ways of doing your business and satisfying your customers so as to win more of your competitors’ customers and put off your competitor from the market. 

By Temitope Dada Odukeye